In a 4-2 split, the N.C. Supreme Court has vacated a death sentence and ordered a new trial for Danny Robbie Hembree Jr., convicted in 2011 of murdering his girlfriend’s 17-year-old sister, Heather Catterton, in Gastonia in 2009. That was one of three murder charges Hembree faced at the time.
The court’s majority ruled that a series of errors during Hembree’s original trial entitles him to a new trial.
